(7)Gordon Freeman vs (12)Hades vs (21)Simon Belmont 2013
Results Round One Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 Ulti's Analysis There was very minor debate here about whether or not Hades could upset Simon for second place, and then that atrocious picture came out and the buzz became a very legit fear. Conan the Belmontarian was ugly as s***, and it was the second match in a row where I had to watch a favorite character of mine get screwed over, although this one was for a vastly different reason. I know Simon had no chance to win, but seeing him go down with dignity would have been nice. This match was also a decent enough warning sign of just how badly Pit was going to perform in his own match. Hades was supposed to challenge for second place, and never came anywhere close. As an aside, isn't it funny how far Gordon Freeman has come? He used to never win anything, then Phoenix Wright came along and he hasn't lost in the first round since. I know he technically "lost" in the Rivalry Rumble's first round, but that was all Mr. Breen's fault. Individually, I think he could still take Phoenix, and he would annihilate Edgeworth. But even with that, he's gotten out of the first round in 5 of his last 6 contests. That's pretty good for the guy that started the Gordon Freeman Never Wins fad, though he got stuck with Leon Kennedy in round 2, so he was destined for an early exit this year. Zen's (Late) Analysis THE ACTION FIGURE PIC RETURNS! This is the second time ever that an action figure picture has been used, the first time was in 2007 when I submitted an action figure pic for Kratos. I tried covering up that it was an action figure and thought I had slipped one past Allen, but in retrospect he was probably like "yeah whatever that's Kratos who cares" and just used it without any thought. I don't know why I was so obsessed with trying to bend pic rules. I'm personally a fan of the First4Figures Simon statue. Of course, now that Simon is confirmed for Smash and looks dope as hell, we won't need action figure pics for him anymore. I'd still take a figure over the truly awful Light Yagami-look alike art he got in his bio pic. With Smash, Simon probably could give modern Gordon a run for his money. Not win, but do a bit more respectably. But... I want to return to the MFer ("Martyr Factor," for those just skimming these writeups) for a second here. There's not many characters this could apply to, but I believe Gordon is one of them. Half-Life 3 is the video game joke as far as I'm concerned. It's the meme that keeps on giving. You think it's gone but then shit like this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR4jPtrDCLo Which, naturally, gets people riled up again. They look up and shout, "Save us!" And Gaben whispers... "No." So despite not having a new game and probably never getting a new game, Gordon will remain popular, and people will vote for him and his games out of respect and a little bit of pity. We may see Gordon at full strength in 2018, or maybe even stronger. Back to 2013, and Gordon looked pretty good here. This match was just set up to Gordon getting beaten by Leon in a rematch nobody asked for, but eh, they can't all be winners. Oh shit I forgot to talk about Hades uuuuuh unless we get an Uprising 2 within the next week or Hades is announced as an Echo Fighter of my ass then we're never seeing this jobber again. Category:2013 Contest Matches